If anyone is interested in the fundamentals of the game, there was an active live stream of the scoreboards and base cameras, along with commentary. In the following clip, the first game is the game played for the wooden spoon, which we almost won.
https://m.twitch.tv/videos/236629926

Finally home, unpacked and back into the swing of things. Time for a report! But first, a small bit of info - For Teams and Lord of the Rings, the placings are based on victory points (based on the fact that it's 3 people/teams in each game). First place gets 6 points, second place gets 4 points, third place gets 2 points.
Lord of the Rings:
In round 1, we played 6 games of Lord of the Rings. Top 36 players continue to round 2, then the top 9 out of the round 2 games make round 3. Top 3 from round 3 make finals. Finalists play 3 games, and are then placed by average score over those 3 games.
I played some of the best players in the game in my rather tough LotR draw. I got penalised a few times for making silly mistakes (like stepping out of the ring), which cost me. I missed the top 36 by 2 victory points.
Solos:
I played rather poorly in my 2 round one games, and was placed into repechage 1. Everyone that didn't make round 2 was placed into a repechage game, and the top 6 in each also make round 2. I placed 4th in my repechage game, making round 2.
However, I spent 90% of my round 2 game being stalked by much better players than me, and I didn't progress any further.
Doubles:
I played doubles with another player from my local site. We had a bit of a rough start, with a pretty low score of 17,000 (expected average score over 2 games to make round 2 was 23-25,000). However in our second game we found our rhythm, and scored a whopping 30,000 points. We missed round 2 by an average of <500 points, and played repechage. We were dominated early, but came back, and missed round 2 by 800 points.
Triples:
I don't find this a particularly "competitive" event, because the format changes every year and isn't announced until the day of the event. I played this with two players from Darwin to have some fun, and fun we did have! Needless to say we didn't make round 2.
Teams:
The main event. We played 12 games of round robin, and then we played 2 sets of 6 games in cascades (which is used to rebalance the ladder positions based on playing teams of similar positions after round robin).
We had a super tough round robin draw, playing a top 15 team in every single one of our round robin games. We also had some external drama outside of the arena, with some issues caused by a player from another team. We didn't perform as well as we'd hoped across these 24 games, and so we moved into the finals day in last (37th) place.
Finals is an interesting system. First place continues on, and second and third are eliminated. Because of this it was do or die for us, as if we finished our first game of the day in third place, we got the wooden spoon. We missed first place by 400 points, leaving us eliminated - however we didn't have to bring back the spoon!
In the end, I'm really proud of my team. We had a lot of dramas pushed onto us, but we pressed on. My rookies performed very well, and improved a lot over the course of the competition. Training starts back up for us tomorrow - moving forward to 2019 at Sunshine Coast!
Cheers,
Wellzy

Thanks guys!
First update - We're playing a side event today called Lord of the Rings.
3 people in a circle, all of the same colour. You get zero points for tagging someone, but you *lose* 100 when you get tagged. Closest score to 0 wins.
The basic premise of this game is "Shoot people, don't get shot!"
Cheers,
Wellzy

Another thing to add to this - a player from before my time (alias Sinc) started a fun idea of ranking the teams prior to the event starting. Since then it's grown to a point where everyone gets involved reviewing other teams and posting some info about them, as well as the predicted rankings.
Here is our team's review and the predicted ladder!
Cheers,
Wellzy

Hey raiders, it's that time of year again!
This year I'm competing in my second national championships for lasertag. Last year (the post is buried somewhere here in The Bar) I competed in Adelaide as a first-year rookie, and we finished 27th out of 33 teams. It was, at the time, the largest lasertag event held in the world!
This year we compete in Albury. I'm captain of a team this year, and I'm taking down 2 players from my 2017 team, along with 3 first-year rookies. There are 37 teams competing this year, which will break another competition size record. The Australian scene is blowing up so much that the Committee has had to restrict games wherever they can - we're only playing a partial round robin this year.
I have a few goals this year:
Firstly - Finish outside the bottom 5 in teams. We did it last year with 3 rookies, and I'm sure we can do it again.
Make it to round 2 in at LEAST 2 side-events (Solos, Doubles, Triples, Lord of the Rings)
Make it to round 3 in a single side-event (Most likely Lord of the Rings or Doubles)
Work with the other NSW site (Albury) to try and found a NSW Lasertag Association (NSWLTA) to assist in growing the NSW lasertag scene.
The following images are our Round Robin draw, and the tables that show our Round Robin draw, how the other sections of the teams competition works (namely Cascade 1+2, and System D), and also my team's jersey design - Sydney Hydra.
I'll keep updates posted in this thread of our progress throughout the competition!
Cheers,
Wellzy

Derek, I have a reel spooled and ready to go with 15lb braid, probably should've mentioned that in the post!
I've got a couple of those flutter type jigs. I might buy a back of SPs and some jigheads, and maybe a popper or two and have a crack!
Cheers,
Wellzy

Hey raiders!
I've got a 9ft rod good for casting small metals (cast weight 20-60grams) and I'm hoping to have a crack at lure fishing land-based for Kingfish and other pelagics. I've got a few metal lures between 20-60g, but I was wondering what hardbodies would be good to have a go at this? Is it enough cast weight for large enough hardbodies, or should I just try my luck with the metals?
Cheers,
Wellzy

I think you made a wise call there Scratchie. While you were out enjoying the waterways and catching some nice fish, I was at home nursing a nasty headache. I'm still a bit dusty now, first day back at work! A great shot of the sunrise, too.
Cheers,
Wellzy

Hey raiders!
After a quick flick at the Nepean over the Christmas break that netted me an 8cm bass, I lost my favourite bass lure, and I've decided I need to expand my rather small collection. I have a small range of 38-40mm diving cranks, and various surface cicadas (hardbody and soft-shell).
What are your go-to Bass lures, if not cicadas or cranks? Has anyone used Berkley Power Pop frogs to success? Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Wellzy